Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Stock Market Update: Wednesday, November 18, 2009

I ran across a headline that I thought was pretty funny:

Man raises money to fly military folk home for the holidays.Believes that soldiers' time in unconventional combat against unseen extremists might adequately prepare them for a typical family Thanksgiving

But when I stopped to read the article I found that what it’s really all about is very cool. With Thanksgiving just a week away, I thought this was more appropriate than the usual stuff I include here about how Wall Street is doing!

Let's Bring Em Home (LBEH.org) is a non-profit organization, established in 2001, that arranges for transportation for enlisted military personnel who cannot afford the travel costs otherwise. LBEH is active primarily before and during US holidays, giving junior military personnel an opportunity to fly home and spend the holidays with their families. Travel is provided for free to the personnel who qualify. This year LBEH has raised over $13,000 so far this year but needs roughly $16,000 more to fulfill their current requests.

Is that a cool idea or what? Getting enlisted men and women back home with their families for the holidays! Sweet! (Anyone tearing up yet?) And it also reminds me of one of the coolest corporate programs I know of: U.S. Bancorp’s Employee Assistance Fund.

And for those of you who think this might be the kind of endeavor you’d like to support, I can’t vouch for how ethical or well managed they are but a cursory Google search didn’t turn up anything negative. (For whatever that may be worth . . .)

The Dow was down slightly today in light trading. (Okay, I have no idea if it was light trading, heavy trading or no trading at all. It just makes me feel like a CNBC anchor to use phrases like that!) U.S. Bank stock was down a whopping 3 cents.Stock Price